‘What’s important to us is to be able to share great moments of animal nature, and some controlled filming allows us to do that. We’re proud of those sequences because they reveal new aspects of behaviour that you can only see filmed in this way.

‘We know that the audience wants to know, and we don’t have a problem with it. We’re not embarrassed about it, we’re absolutely proud of it.’

Africa launched over the festive period to stellar ratings and huge acclaim from fans and critics. The next episode, which airs on Wednesday at 9pm, sees Attenborough and his team travel to the Congo.